We often think of the self as something that exists independent of social relations, but without society, there would be no need for a self or any of the concepts that relate to the self, including morality, duties, belonging, or reputation. Roy F. Baumeister is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland and is known for his work on several areas such as the self, self-control, self-esteem, motivation, and free will. His latest book is The Self Explained which builds on previous b...
Apr 10, 2023•53 min•Ep. 267
Is poetry only for the elite? There are some who would reserve poems only for a specialized audience, but poetry can be found everywhere. Poetry is the language of heightened experience. Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. Dana is a former California Poet laureate and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He holds a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard. Dana’s latest book of poems is called Meet Me at the Lighthouse. Dana and Greg discu...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 266
Every business wants to become a platform business, believing that network effects and first mover advantages will lead to market power and competitive advantage. Indeed, some investors think that the advantages that come from being a platform are the only ones that matter in the digital economy. But not every great business is a platform, and not every platform is a great business. Jonathan Knee is the Michael T. Fries Professor of Professional Practice of Media and Technology at Columbia Busin...
Mar 31, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 265
As humans, we have undoubtedly dominated our planet like no other species before us. However, facing the sobering reality that our own actions could lead to our extinction demands the question: have the very traits that set us apart from other species also paved the way for our self-destruction? Justin Gregg is an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University, a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project, a science writer, and the author of the book “If Nietzsche Were ...
Mar 29, 2023•47 min•Ep. 264
The fear of algorithmic decision-making and surveillance capitalism dominate today's tech policy discussions. But instead of simply criticizing big data and automation, we can harness technology to correct discrimination, historical exclusions, and subvert long-standing stereotypes. Orly Lobel is the author of “The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future” and Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. Lobel is...
Mar 27, 2023•53 min•Ep. 263
What is art, and who gets to define it? Museums have long staked a claim on knowing what to show, but there has always been a wide range of how viewers engage with art. There is also a wide range of artists and what is considered art, from classical masters like Titian to modern conceptual artists like Marcel Duchamp. Lance Esplund is an art critic, journalist, educator, and author. His book, titled The Art of Looking: How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art, is about telling the reader how to b...
Mar 22, 2023•59 min•Ep. 262
How does magical thinking help or hurt us in our everyday lives?? What would we lose if we removed the enchantment that it provides? Magical thinking is inherent in the human experience and persists even in an era dominated by the scientific worldview. Matthew Hutson is a journalist who writes for The New Yorker and other publications. Matt is also the author of the book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane. He shows us how magical thinking is h...
Mar 20, 2023•47 min•Ep. 261
Organizational leaders can use the power of behavioral economics to not only make better decisions themselves, but by leading their employees, their customers, and their stakeholders to make wiser decisions, make the company more effective, and also make society better off as a result. Max H. Bazerman is Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Don A. Moore is Professor in Leadership...
Mar 17, 2023•56 min•Ep. 260
Everyone loves a good story, but more than that, we as humans are programmed on a genetic level to share and learn all kinds of information through stories. When you tap into the power of that response you can use it to engage people on all levels, from customers to audiences to investors, and achieve a connection with them on a fundamental level. David Riemer is a lecturer at the University of California’s Haas School of Business and adviser at Berkeley’s Skydeck Accelerator, where He has been ...
Mar 15, 2023•50 min•Ep. 259
Corporations are engines of progress and prosperity, directly influencing the quality of life of the general public while sometimes recklessly pursuing profit at the expense of us all. William joins Greg for a nuanced examination of the modern economy’s central institution, its origins in the Roman Republic, where corporations were designed to promote the common good, their role in mediating influence between the tyranny of government and the populace, their flaws, and the cultural shift to turn...
Mar 13, 2023•54 min•Ep. 258
Is our behavior truly our own? Or do our choices grow out of our environment? There are influences all around each of us, and often the walking talking version of influencers ends up shaping the behavior of the people around them in ways that are not always visible. Jon Levy is a behavior scientist and the founder of the Influencers Dinner. He is also an author. His latest book is called You're Invited: The Art and Science of Connection, Trust, and Belonging, and his previous work is titled The ...
Mar 10, 2023•46 min•Ep. 257
Live every day like it’s your last, or like it's the beginning of the rest of your life? The way we answer this question is closely tied to views on mortality, and how humans deal with the concept of their own impending demise. Death is the inevitable great leveler, and yet there are many different ways that humans think and live with the topic. Andrew Stark is a professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto. Andrew is also the author of several books. His latest is titled The C...
Mar 08, 2023•50 min•Ep. 256
Emotions play a pivotal role in shaping our lives. They contribute crucially to the rationality of life, making us unique in our ability to reason and make sense of the world. Ronnie de Sousa is a Swiss-born Canadian philosopher, renowned for his outstanding contributions to the philosophy of emotion and biology, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and author of such books as The Rationality of Emotion (1987), Why Think? Evolution and the Rational Mind (2007) and Love: a Very Short...
Mar 06, 2023•59 min•Ep. 255
In the last decade, disruptive innovation has come primarily from startups like Uber, AirBnB, or not legacy companies. But Linda Yates argues that large companies can and should compete with start-ups by creating an internal innovation pipeline. Linda joins Greg to discuss her new book, The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Spee d, which is a step-by-step guide for leading internal corporate innovation Linda Yates is the Founder and CEO of Mach49 , which ...
Mar 03, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 254
Food is much better and more interesting when it combines many cuisines. So too is economics more fruitful when it sources from different schools. While many countries have seen their diets expand, the profession of economics increasingly relies on “monocropping”, drawing only from the neo-classical school. In his latest book, Edible Economics , economist Ha Joon Chang uses the ever changing food culture to help readers understand how economic theories are also constantly evolving and merging. I...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 253
No matter what industry we all work in, productivity is key. Not only is managing our time properly good for getting all of our tasks done but also spending time doing things we love. In this episode of unSILOed, Robert Pozen shares methods to creating priorities for your time, ways to protect your time, and making sure you’re spending each day addressing your priorities. Robert Pozen is the author of Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours as well as Remote, Inc.: How to Thr...
Feb 27, 2023•49 min•Ep. 252
Sometime in the 18th century, the world began to grow at much faster rate. Economic Historians have debated the reasons for this Industrial Revolution, but it almost certainly has to do with the growth of technology and a culture of scientific inquiry. Joel Mokyr is both an economist and a historian. He is also a professor of both Economic and History at Northwestern University. In addition, Joel has authored several books on history and the economy over the years. His latest book, A Culture of ...
Feb 24, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 251
When most historians set out to write a book, they choose a particular point in history to dive deep into. But Ian Morris prefers to write about history from the 10,000-foot view- or in some cases, the 10,000-year view. He calls it big history, and on this episode of unSILOed, Greg and Ian talk about some of the Big History topics Ian has tackled in his writing career such as: the evolution of human values over thousands of years, how war has shaped our various cultures, and how Britain’s recent...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 250
Humans respond to incentives just like any other animal, but it’s important to make sure to use the right incentive to get the results that you desire because sometimes incentives can lead to unintended outcomes. Uri Gneey holds a chair in Behavioral Economics and is Professor of Economics and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He is also an author and his latest book, Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work will be released in March. Uri is also the co-author of The Why Axis...
Feb 20, 2023•54 min•Ep. 249
When we think about the greatest innovators of our time (Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Frank Lloyd Wright) we often hear about their work ethic. But one thing that all of these innovators have in common is their ability to walk away from the work. They nap, they garden, and they go shopping to give themselves a break from the problem they are working on and look for inspiration in the real world. They gave themselves space to let inspiration come to them, rather than trying to force it. In this...
Feb 17, 2023•59 min•Ep. 248
Can ordinary symbolic human behavior be analyzed through the lens of game theory the same way that the economic behavior can?? What similarities show up in both economics and culture?? Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli are both research scientists at MIT, lecturers at Harvard, and authors of the book Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior. In the book, Moshe and Erez use game theory to examine human behavior and provide an insightful way to explain seem...
Feb 15, 2023•43 min•Ep. 247
The evolution of Networks has been characterized by periodic technological revolutions that result in accelerated dispersion of information and new ideas. By examining these moments and the conditions that caused them we can learn new things about the nature of networks. Tom Wheeler is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Center and also an author. He has an upcoming book called Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the New Gilded age. His previous book is called From Gutenberg to Google: The History o...
Feb 13, 2023•53 min•Ep. 246
Psychiatry has been called the stepchild of medicine, experiencing far less progress than care of the body. Andrew Scull, a sociology professor at the University of California at San Diego, chronicles the history of Psychiatry in America in his latest book, Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s turbulent quest to cure mental illness. In this episode of unSILOed, Greg and Andrew discuss this history including the rise and rapid fall of asylums, and the procession of remedies that offered false hope to...
Feb 10, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 245
Competition drives down prices, makes it hard to collude on prices, and keeps any one company from taking excessive profits, but the fewer players there are in the game of free markets, the more power and control each one has, and consumers are ultimately the ones who lose. Thomas Philippon is an economist, a professor at New York University in the Stern School of Business, and the author of the book The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets . In his book, Thomas investigates the p...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 244
The classic image of evolution everyone knows is the man who goes from apelike body to tool using biped. But the bigger, story would include families, groups of humans who worked together, including women, children, and people of all ages, which means division of labor and culture. Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson are a Research Associate and Professor Emeritus, respectively, in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California Davis. They are also authors, and ...
Feb 06, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 243
How did we get to the financial crisis of 2008? Where were the signs, and what did we miss? For these questions and more, we turn to the person who wrote a book on the subject. Dr. George Cooper is an author and the chief investment Officer of Equitile investments. He has 27 years of investment experience including with JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and BlueCrest Capital before. His first book, The Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles, and the Efficient Market Fal...
Feb 03, 2023•55 min•Ep. 242
Most history books explain the details of events and provide well-researched context to these events. But history isn’t just about what happened, it’s often about why. The root of any social change is often complex, human emotions. In his new book, France before 1789, Jon Elster explores the circumstances leading up to the French Revolution and the limits of rational choice theory in explaining collective action. In this episode of unSILOed, Greg and Jon talk about how human emotions like fear, ...
Feb 01, 2023•50 min•Ep. 241
In recent decades there has been a major restructuring of the economy from capital-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven fields which increases the demand for high skilled workers. But why is it, that the US is producing a lot more innovation than other parts of the world? Edward W. Conard is an American businessman, author, and scholar. He is a New York Times-bestselling author of The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class and Unintended...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 240
The brain is a curious thing, but how does curiosity happen in it? Where does curiosity begin, and what does that process look like? Curiosity does quite a lot inside the brain, from connecting dots of knowledge to shaping entire architectures of thought and organization. Understanding the underpinnings of this motivating force can allow us to harness its power for our own advancement. Dani Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the D...
Jan 27, 2023•51 min•Ep. 239
Growth is good but creates losers as well as winners. The Economics profession has far too often failed to provide insight into how to design policies that protect those negatively impacted by forces such as technological change and globalization. There’s a lot riding with how we address the economic ‘losers’, and it matters because the two main ways to engage with this problem have dramatically different consequences. Glenn Hubbard is an author, economist, and also Professor of Economics as wel...
Jan 25, 2023•50 min•Ep. 238
